They’d positioned themselves on either side of me, so I was forced to keep swiveling my head back and forth to converse with both of them. It was going to be like watching a tennis match. “Have you actually read my statement?”
“We read it,” said Menario. His voice was gruff from lack of sleep.
“I tried to offer a detailed explanation for all of my actions.”
“Just walk us through it, will you, Warden?” Danica gave me a polite smile, but her beryl blue eyes were as distant as a woman’s eyes could possibly be.
I started from the beginning: the 911 call, the missing deer, Stump Murphy and Curt Hutchins, the DNA samples I’d taken, my discovery of the Driskos’ presence at the scene of the accident, the information MaryBeth Fickett had provided me about the Westergaards also being from Cambridge, and finally the rush out to Parker Point. I held nothing back.
They let me ramble with minimal interruptions until this point.
“Let’s return to Trooper Hutchins,” said Danica. “You said he arrived at the accident scene approximately fifteen minutes after you.”
“I wasn’t looking at my watch, but that sounds about right.”
“Did he tell you why he was delayed?”
“Something about bad spark plugs.”
“Did you believe him?”
The question took me by surprise. So did my answer. “No.”
“Why not?” asked Menario.
I craned my neck around to meet his gaze. “It just seemed like an odd excuse.”
Why were they asking me about Hutchins? Was there an inconsistency in his statement? Maybe they were already laying the groundwork for an internal affairs investigation.
The muscular detective radiated heat like a pizza oven. “Hutchins says you were in a real hurry to get out of there.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way. He told me it was a state police matter and that I should go home.”
“But you didn’t stick around to help him look for the girl.”
“I’d already done so before he arrived. It’s in my statement.”
“You walked up and down the road.” His tone suggested he considered my actions inadequate.
“How would you describe your relationship with Trooper Hutchins?” Danica’s eyes had grown opaque.
“We don’t have a relationship. I’ve only met him a few times.”
Menario gave me a blast of stale coffee breath. “You don’t like him, do you?”
“I have no opinion of him,” I replied, lying.
“Did you or did you not have an altercation with Trooper Hutchins last night?” asked Danica.
“I wouldn’t call it that. We were outside the Westergaard house, waiting for backup. I was angry, and he sort of pushed me.”
“Why were you angry?”
“He’d told me at the accident scene that he would assume responsibility for finding Ashley. He didn’t do squat. As a result, she ended up raped and murdered.”
“So you blame him?”
“Yes, I blame him-and myself.” I made an impatient gesture with my hands and looked squarely at the prosecutor. “I should never have gone home that night. I knew something was wrong.”
The detective and the prosecutor regarded each other over my head. My T-shirt was damp under the arms and down the back, from where I’d been leaning against the chair.
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” asked Danica.
With that, the two of them left the room. I rubbed my mouth and chin. Why had I confessed to feeling guilty over my conduct on the night of Ashley Kim’s disappearance? Was I intent on making myself a scapegoat, too? It must have been that stupid sermon Deb Davies gave me.
After several long moments, the door swung open and the detective and prosecutor returned. They brought with them a gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-faced man who introduced himself as Detective Atwood of the Knox County sheriff’s department. He then parked himself in a corner and never spoke another word during the remainder of my time in that room.
“We’re going to play a video,” Danica said pleasantly.
“We want you to show us where you trashed the crime scene,” explained Menario.
This time, I didn’t rise to the bait.
Menario tried to run the video machine but quickly became exasperated by its unwillingness to bend to his command. A deputy was brought in to steer us through the house.
We started outside the building and moved carefully up the walkway, just as Charley and I had done the night before. At the front door, I indicated the place where my footprints left the steps and forged off through mud and snow around the corner of the house. Detective Menario scribbled furiously into a notebook as I narrated. The video tech had spent a lot of time photographing the broken window where I’d busted in-the broken glass shining from the carpet, and a few specks of what must have been blood from my arm. Each spot had been numbered and marked by an arrow, with a ruler beside it for scale. We lingered awhile in the kitchen, zooming in on the knife block with its missing blade, before proceeding upstairs. I couldn’t help but think of a cheap horror movie, the shaky camera stalking the hall as if from the killer’s point of view.
The images of Ashley Kim were even more gruesome than my memories. I found myself focusing on details I had missed-the frayed and bloody edge of the rigging tape over her mouth, the uneven depths of the letters inscribed into her pale flesh, the rawness of her genitals. I told the detective and the prosecutor how the body had been positioned when I discovered it and how I had turned the corpse over to read the word scrawled into her skin.
“We found your fingerprints on her shoulder,” said Menario.
“Did you find any others?”
“Your role here is as a material witness,” explained Danica. “We can’t share information about what we’ve discovered without undermining your usefulness to us when this case goes to trial.”
So I was being frozen out of the hunt for the murderer. I should have expected as much. Still, my curiosity was such that I couldn’t keep myself from making one last attempt. “I heard the medical examiner estimated the time of death to be yesterday afternoon.”
“Those results are preliminary,” said Menario without thinking.
Danica Marshall turned her blue death ray on him. “The medical examiner has issued no findings, so whatever you heard is gossip.” She gave me a tight smile. “I wouldn’t put any stock in it.”
“People are going to talk,” I said. “It’s inevitable in this town.”
The deputy-a young guy with acne scars and pale, watery eyes-smirked. I was glad I was amusing someone. As I glanced about the room, I became aware of Detective Atwood again, hanging silently in the background like Hamlet’s dead father.
“Well, you’d better not talk,” said Menario. “I’m not shitting around, Bowditch. You keep your mouth shut about what you saw in that house. That means no talking to the press. It means no talking with your girlfriend. Understand?”
Again, Danica interjected: “As a law officer, you appreciate that principle, I’m sure.”
I tilted back in my chair. I felt that I had a certain leverage. “Has Ashley’s family been notified?”
“That’s not your concern,” said the detective.
“What about Westergaard. Have you found the professor yet?”
“No comment.”
“What if Mrs. Westergaard calls me?”
Menario glanced at a sheet of paper in his hand. “According to your statement, you didn’t speak with Mrs. Westergaard. Charley Stevens did.”
Danica intervened. “If you are contacted by Mrs. Westergaard-or anyone else-you should just refer them to Detective Menario or the state police public-information officer. Does that clarify things?”
“Yes.”
